Happy Birthday, Audrey!

Fish bones.

Science.

Little Lady.

Unbuckle Audrey.

from A Holy Experience...

Soaking Up More Than Spilled Milk…

They’ve captured me on film wearing it, it like a toga slung over one shoulder, like a mantle flung over and hanging, and sometimes I wave hands, waving off clicking shutter because I’m wearing this thing, even while out for a stroll, and sometimes, frankly, I entirely forget that it’s there, it flowing from me.

And yet there are ways, after all these years, it’s only now becoming who I am and what it means to love.

They’re meant to hang on racks, these dishtowels, or drape over oven handles, or the slip on the knob of cupboard under the sink. I wear mine. The one with the waffle weave, burnt orange and tattered, preferably. But I’m not particular.

The blue striped one, like old pillow ticking, blackened at edges, singed by a close call with a ringing element all aflame, or the faded-from-years navy gingham from Holland and love of Dutch mother-in-law, whichever, whenever, I’ll fling whatever over shoulder, official badge of the domestic, and begin.

Because a mother soaks it up.

Of course, that’s how I came to wear it, them spilling water, tipping juice, splattering milk. I always needed a towel. And couldn’t it pinch hit too as a trivet, napkin, potholder, white flag of surrender?

I’d mop it up, wipe it down, pass it over, just feebly wave. Nearly a decade and a half and half a dozen kids and it’s the exception to our crazy normal to get through a meal without the dumping of the something. And instinctively they reach for me, for it hanging there. It happily works.

But we spill worse.

One morning I’m buttering toast and they spill soul entrails, again, and I’m left flailing, again. One child mocks and another wails so older child metes out vigilante justice and alliances are formed and betrayed and tensions rocket and any instructive words on my part seem to tip them all more and consequences imparted slop more mess and soon the room tilts and a tsunami wall of rising, ugly pain threatens to deluge our humble abode and sweep all away. Now would seem a good time to throw up arms, wave a feeble dishtowel defeat. What else can a mother do when it all falls apart?

Soak it up. God shoots back an answer to my rhetorical question and I’m rung.

Absorb pain with love. Mop up hurt with embrace. Throw down self and wipe it all up.

It’s what God Himself did with our oil slick of sin, soaking up our crude with His seamless garment, staining His cloth with life laid down. Because, truthfully, there are no other useful options. The only tool you have to contain a toxic sin spill is the only one God had: an absorbent heart.

So I do it. I grab the angriest, messiest heart and hold it close. A wonder! Every single time you can feel it right through you, that potency of touch. It’s how Jesus healed the leper, the blind men, the deaf and dumb man, the mother-in-law of Peter. He absorbed the sin with a lingering, intentional touch. And still today, for all our progressive sophistication, we have no absorbent material that can surpass it, in all its simplicity and limitless availability. Nothing sponges up leaking, sin-oozing skin like another skin gathering you up, holding you long. Touch still cleans and pressed closeness of a hug still heals.

When our day rips open, hemorrhages, we have the same option, and the only helpful one, as God had. We can wrap our arms around the bleeding one, lay ourselves over spill and soak it up. It feels good just to hug.

Love alone covers, sops up, a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).

Like the God who “taking a towel, tied it around his waist” (John 13:4 ESV), knelt down to clean up his disciples messiness with a tender touch; who wiped them dry with love and “the towel with which He was girded” (John 13:5 NKJ).

Love rags absorb pain in arms open wide, and she becomes it and it becomes her, this towel which girds a mother’s days.

Gators & Friends.

Field trip!

The entrepreneurial spirit continues.

{02.19.12} Dade and Luke decided on a whim to have a lemonade stand. Obstacle #1: we did not have any lemons. Obstacle #2: they were not set up in a prime location. I helped them improvise with a bag of cuties... problem #1 solved. Dade made their sign while Luke juiced the oranges. They made a quick call to Gran & Big Daddy to make them aware of their juice stand... problem #2 solved. They sold all their juice!

Big Daddy decided to take Tommy and the big boys for a ride on the Ranger. Audrey, Gran and I waited for a long while outside wondering where they could have gone...

Luke upon their arrival back home... they had driven into town for ice cream at Dairy Queen!

Determined.

{01.27.12} Wyatt loves to climb and was determined to get up on the walker in Nana's room after her knee surgery.

Wyatt's turn.

I love his face in this picture!

Scrimmage.

Luke at catcher.

Coop.

Work on the chicken coop has begun!


One morning before ELO, I had to make a quick stop into a feed store for a chemical I needed for that day's chemistry experiment. Right when we walked in the door, there were little chicks waiting to be purchased. Luke told me he was going back to the van to get his wallet so he could buy one! Of course, he did not leave the store with one that day... I told him he needed to talk to Dad and Big Daddy. He has not stopped thinking about chickens since! He has come up with all kinds of creative coops and ways to keep the foxes, skunks and snakes from getting to them. His plan was to start with six then work his way up to 30. He has asked Tommy and me just about every day (usually multiples times each day) if we have discussed getting chickens. 


My parents talked about getting some chickens a few months back and had planned to recreate my old playhouse into a coop. After getting the garden planted Saturday, the coop was next on the list. I found plans and pictures online; Tommy and the boys knocked the old walls, windows and door out and will be replacing them soon! 


Updates to come...

D&L Watermelon Co.

The boys broke ground on their newest venture... seeds were planted yesterday.

Garden.

Time4Learning

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

Leap Day.

Wednesdays are our busy days. We leave by eight for homeschool co-op in Longview and by the time we finish, load up and leave, it is usually 12:30. Sometimes we meet some of the other families at Chick-Fil-A for lunch, sometimes the kids and I stop by the park and other times, we just come home because we leave around 4:45 for KIDZ LIFE. Since this past Wednesday was leap day, I had a few activities planned for the afternoon at home. I mentioned to the boys on the way to ELO that I wanted to play leap frog and jump rope together later that day... they were less than thrilled. On our drive home, I discussed with them again what the plan was... Luke said he did not want to play. That's when it hit me; Luke is going to be TEN and Dade will be TWELVE on the next Leap Day. Trying to hold back my tears, I brought this fact to their attention. {In order to keep me from a full break down} they finally agreed to play with me.

Storytime with Mimi.

The sweetest loaf of bread.

The past few weeks at ELO, some of the kids have had a bake sale with lots of homemade treats. The boys remembered that the sale would be taking place again this Wednesday, so they put some of their money in their backpacks. When we arrived, I heard Luke tell his friend that he brought $6 to spend at the bake sale. I quickly informed him that he did not need to spend that much money on sweets. He went on to tell me that there was bread last week, that it was $2 a loaf and that he planned to buy some. I dismissed this statement because I know how much Luke loves dessert. I WAS WRONG! When we got in the van after co-op, Luke pulled this delicious loaf of bread out of his backpack. He was so excited to share it with us for dinner! We made sandwiches and toast with it then finished it with dinner Thursday night.

Crazy clothes night!

The Zoo.

{01.20.12} My mother-in-law met the kids and me at the zoo. It was perfect weather and there were very few people there that day.

Wyatt took a nap on the way there.

Flamingos.

The cheetah - Dade informed me that cheetahs can see father than most other mammals because they have "eye black" to reflect the sunlight from their eye.

Wyatt's animal brother -- they have the same hair!

Wyatt decided to share his applesauce pouch with the alligator  -- he threw it over the fence before I could stop him and it landed near the tip of the gator's tail!

Wyatt took this picture!

Can anyone find Luke?!